Nearly 400 fewer new and existing homes and condos were sold in Santa Clara County last month than in January 2004, a La Jolla real estate information service reported on Thursday.
Still, the median price of a single-family unit in the county rose 14.7 percent to $648,000 in the 12-month period, according to DataQuick Information Systems.
The 20 percent drop in the county's sales pace to 1,486 units mirrored the results for the entire nine-county Bay Area as did the median price increase.
A total of 6,004 homes and condos were sold in the region last month compared with 7,509 in January 2005. But the median price for the region rose 13.7 percent to $607,000.
The region's January sales pace was the lowest for any month since January 2001, when 5,977 homes were sold, DataQuick said.
The median price of a Bay Area home fell 0.3 percent in January from the $609,000 level in December 2005.
Last month was also the tenth in a row to see a year-over-year decline in the pace of sales.
"We won't know for another couple of months if this is a lull in the market or part of longer-term downturn," said Marshall Prentice, DataQuick president, in a release. "It's always difficult to project from trends we see in January and February. The March numbers will tell us much more about what's going on."
The regional numbers mask substantial variations within each of the nine counties in the number of sales and median price changes.
Marin County, which has the highest median home price of all nine counties -- $741,000 last month, up slightly from a year ago -- saw a 32 percent decline in its sales pace.
Napa County saw its sales pace decline more than 37 percent to 103 units for the entire month. Its median price was up 10 percent year-over-year, however, to $596,000.
Closer to home, San Mateo County had an 18.2 percent drop in its unit sales count to 450. Its median rose 4.8 percent to $726,000 year over year.
In San Francisco, the sales pace dropped nearly 21 percent from January 2004 to last month. The median was up 5.6 percent to $722,000.
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